Christ and Culture

When Mark Dever critiqued the idea that Christians can somehow "redeem culture" in his address at the 2008 Together for the Gospel conference, there were reverberations felt both in that room and beyond. He has a point: when we read the Scriptures, the world is only fully transformed when the Lord returns and makes all things new. But part of the thrust of his talk seemed to be that cultural engagement and transformation may be legitimate activities for individual Christians, but not necessarily for the church.

Flash forward a few weeks to another conference, the Dwell Conference in New York City hosted by Redeemer Presbyterian and Acts 29. The thrust of the conference was how to live incarnationally in urban contexts for the good of the city and for the glory of God. This sort of conference is precisely the sort of place that language of "redeeming culture" is heard. And the emphasis was not simply on how individual Christians are to engage and transform, but how the church is to do so. Listen especially to Ed Stetzer's and Eric Mason's talks, but also Tim Keller's on persuasion.

There is a real tension here. Mark Dever certainly sounded as if he were critiquing a big part of what the Dwell Conference was about. Tim Keller has certainly used the language of cultural redemption in the past (and others continue to do so, including Tullian Tchividjian of New City Church at his blog). And it is more than merely a theological or hypothetical argument. What should churches appropriately be involved in? Even more important, how must the church engage the world around it in order to be faithful to Scripture?

I find it interesting to note that Dever admitted that he employed hyperbole at T4G in this interview with Ed Stetzer (if you are impatient, skip ahead to the 4 minute mark). In this video for the Gospel Coalition, he sounds out and out Keller-like in his unpacking of the gospel. And at Dwell, Keller deliberately backed away from the language of "redeeming culture," though without backing away from cultural engagement and transformation. So perhaps Drs. Dever and Keller are not quite so far apart as it seems at first. But the questions still remain: How may churches engage culture? How must churches engage culture? Is there one way to answer these questions? How do we remain faithful to Scripture?

I do not intend to even attempt comprehensive answers. That would be rash and arrogant. But in the next few posts I can write about the issues and suggest some directions that we might take. So that is what I intend to do.